Three days after Tim McGraw and his team of merry country stars graced Fenway with their presence, I am teaching fly fishing to newbies in a park 20 miles away at Neponset Day, where I count the number of visitors and count off how to fish in a waltz. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. We teach fly fishing on the river in four basic steps. It’s a graceful waltz with the cast.
Fenway Park is a complex, historical, liberating, beautiful sanctuary. It relives moments of the past while simultaneously creating new ones; an ever-changing tapestry of existence.
Rivers, too, are a complex, historical, liberating, beautiful sanctuary. An ever-changing tapestry of existence.
Three days before the Neponset lawn, I find myself keeping track of the show with Tim McGraw, The Chicks, Lady A, and 49 Winchester in sets of numbers: Duos of telecasters in 49 Winchester. Three chicks balanced on a guitar. Six different bands in one night. And of course, 23, as in the number of years it had been since I first saw The Chicks during the Top of the World tour at the home of the San Jose Sharks in July 2003.
It wouldn’t be Boston without a little history. And every concertgoer here, whether it be the young girl sporting “BBQ stain on my white t-shirt” on her white t-shirt or the woman next to her wearing a 2022 The Chicks tour shirt, or the matching tour shirts from the current Tim McGraw Pawn Shop Guitar Tour, carried their own decorated, celebrated, and detailed past with them. Together, a show like this collects our stories with a mesmerizing waltz into our collective pasts. Concerts are a complex, historical, liberating, beautiful sanctuary. An ever-changing tapestry of existence where we call up our memories and braid them into new ones. The growing and shifting DNA of the concert experience. And what a beautiful one it is.
Thursday July 30 at Fenway presented a five-course summer meal of country. It starts with the special sauce, a reminder to find the thing that makes you unique. For 49 Winchester, that might be asking us if they can play honky tonk, or a cover of “Changes” by Black Sabbath, the latter of which reminds you of what a cover should be: a distinctly different version of a song that is 1000% yours. Something that turns the chairs on The Voice. Something that stops you in your (deer) tracks. Sorry, I’m wearing camo. I had to.
A Fenway evening concert in the summer with five guests and doors that open at 3:00 pm might beg for a music festival space. There might be more room to boogie. But instead, 49 Winchester’s duos of Telecasters rocket across Fenway and provide the soundtrack to selfies and arrivals and the eventual tapping of boots.
Issac Gibson’s voice carries a unique quality, truly a standout on “Changes,” as his smile showcases genuine gratitude for those who “came out early to listen to us.” It’s a smirk that says: I know I like the sound of this, and I’m glad that you do too. If the guy in a Maine lobster shirt rocking out was any indication, there are still both old friends and new friends here, strolling into Fenway with pink Pawn Shop hoodies and camo hats as slide guitars envelope the lyrics “Bringin’ Home The Bacon.” As I putzed with film looks and my phone got hot and lost battery exponentially (a Fenway specialty), I found myself bouncing along to it too.
If 49 Winchester is a reminder to find your special sauce, then Lady A is a reminder to own it all, from the sparkling stilettos to the rhinestone-studded microphone, from the drummer’s killer bangs to Hillary Scott rocking a Stevie Nicks shirt. It’s a reminder to continually find new joy, like adding saxophone to “Fishin’ In The Dark” and finding sparks among the sparkles of a mirrorball telecaster rocked by Dave Haywood. There’s a clear sound panel on the drums that perfectly reflects the American flag waving in the back; little moments that, like when the trio holds their arms in the air triumphantly at the end of their set, stay with you long after. What serendipity to find each other and to craft. As their harmonies soar across Fenway, and hits spanning nearly 20 years are reproduced in glory, love, and care, while a Northeastern mist descended, indeed we are reminded that they “own the night.” And, of course, we recall the reality and the opportunity to have sung these songs, lived these songs, and grown with these songs for almost 20 years.
For The Chicks, for me, it’s been almost 25. It’s been 23 years since I first saw The Chicks, then known by a different name, during the Top of the World tour in San Jose. And it has been six years since I last saw them, in February 2020 in Austin, before the top of our world felt like it crashed down.
How do you even begin to organize three decades of hits? Perhaps you do so supported by a gold-encrusted banjo and intentional stage production, the first of the night to really engage with it. Or maybe you make it a family affair, as Natalie Maine’s son Slade now plays with the band. Or maybe you accept that the beauty of live music is the fact that it is indeed live, and making mistakes such as starting the guitar incorrectly on a song (twice) reminds me that I’m still human.
The memory of my friend passionately singing along to “Not Ready To Make Nice” is seared forever in my brain. She is no longer with us. And I tensed up in trepidation of a release, of feeling too much. And yet I am here, welcoming both memory and rain, because
This is what we bring to a concert. Our own baggage and history, memory and pain, beauty and beloved. And that swirls together along with the heat and humidity and history to craft something uniquely ours. Uniquely human. And how uniquely human is it for us to make mistakes? “Good job, we!” Maines yelled at the end of their mash-up of a cover of Beyoncé’s “Daddy Lessons” and The Chicks’ “Long Time Gone.”
“Good job, me,” I whispered back.
Natalie Maines of The Chicks (Photo by Michelle DeLateur)
The Chicks led us through “Wide Open Spaces” and joined us for a ride on the “Sin Wagon” and reminded us that dancing along to someone’s murder never gets old, though it might get confusing. It is worth seeing a blind reaction to “Goodbye Earl” because the conflict between jamming out or feeling shocked continues for most of us, too, years later.
But as they say, or sang: Earl had to die.
Because I have been going to concerts for decades, I have hit the age where earplugs are a necessity. But I may have blunted my emotions too. So I sneak my Loops out, and allow my ears freedom for Earl. Because, inadvertently, when you block out the frequencies, you might feel emotionally blunted too. As Feist entices me to, I want to feel it all. Feel it all.
And I feel until four spotlights pop on stage illuminating just one, impossibly in-shape singer and his acoustic guitar. A performer “probably known better as Faith Hill’s husband,” Tim McGraw quipped as he flashed a bright million-dollar, startling white smile. I can see why every woman in the crowd is in love with him. A bold choice to start both his main set and his encore with an acoustic guitar-driven song. But again, Tim McGraw is a reminder that even predictable chords are unpredictable. A toss of a guitar to a stagehand (my heart dropped). The young girl dancing in front of me (my heart sang). The young person who received a signed Telecaster directly from McGraw to “start their career,” a tradition that happens every night on the Pawn Shop Guitar tour (my heart soared). I hope he “listens to the whispers in this pawn shop guitar.” Even though these songs are well worn, like the cowboy boots adorned by guests, they can feel new again under the right circumstances.
There’s something very early 2000s, again, about the evening. Perhaps it’s the video grid in the background, or the songs across the decades. And yet every time I am pulled into the past, I ricochet back to the present with lyrics like “To live like you were dyin’” even though the song is from 2004. At least it was in the early 2000s, until songs were performed with a backdrop of footage from the show 1883.
The evening is also a reminder that country music both requires musicianship and conversation. There is a give and take over time. And after staples, and at least one new number, McGraw questions, “Will you come back and see us again?” It is an invitation to continue our personal, possibly decades-long journey with the performers of the evening.
And with that, I throw a new Chicks shirt on top of my custom camo sweatshirt that says “DeLateur Fly Fishing” and depart the world of Fenway, floating like a fly upon that water. Casting for all the years. Casting for the next concert. The next complex, historical, liberating, and beautiful sanctuary. An ever-changing tapestry of existence.
And what a beautiful one it is.
The shadow of Tim McGraw at Fenway Park (Photo by Michelle DeLateur)
